Writing an Abstract

Programme of Study too confusing? Have a gander at the current abstract for the project, written as part of an assignment.

Abstract

Regeneration: Visualising the Life Cycle of Tumour-Suppressing Proteins

Sarah J C Gillespie

In this age of stem-cell research, genetically modified food and in-vitro fertilisation, cell biology researchers are often portrayed in the media as shadowy puppet masters, meddling with genes and changing the course of nature (Ball, 2011).  From the broadsheet newspapers to the American presidential debates, it seems that everyone has an opinion on what it means to be alive.  Sadly, such opinions are often misinformed and coloured by prejudice.  The cell biologists are unable to defend themselves as they find it difficult to communicate complex data in layman’s terms.

This is where art has a role to play. Researchers have begun to look at ways in which art can be used to bypass the jargon words that prevent scientists from communicating with the public. In his PhD thesis, Designs for Life: Art, Science and Collaboration, Dr Paul Liam Harrison (2009) explored printmaking as a means of breaking down interdisciplinary barriers. In Visualise: an exploration of an artist’s approach to 3-D computer visualisation in clinical radiology, Dr John McGhee (2009) investigated the role of computer visualisation as a liaison between doctor and patient.

Recent documentaries have also begun to explore this relationship. The documentary Inside the Human Body (BBC, 2011) used stunning CGI visuals to show the inside of the human body in a way that it had never been visualised before.  Secret Universe: The Hidden Life of the Cell (BBC, 2012) went a step further, transforming the world of the cell into a surreal universe, complete with futuristic sound effects and camera moves taken straight from the sci-fi movie canon.

For my Master’s project, I will collaborate with Professor Angus Lamond at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression. We will develop a narrative to visualise an aspect of the Lamond Lab’s research that would otherwise be difficult to explain.  The final outcome will be a 1-2 minute long documentary film combining live action and CGI sequences.  Specifically, I intend to convey the life cycle of one of the many tumour-suppressing proteins studied in the Lamond Lab.  These proteins are created in response to a crisis, such as DNA damage caused by exposure to UV rays.  The proteins are allowed to survive for long enough to fix the problem before being destroyed. This area of research has great potential for compelling narrative as there is a clear beginning, middle and end: the protein is created, it solves the crisis, and then it is destroyed. (Lamond, 2012)

One of the most pertinent questions relating to the brief concerns artistic licence: how does one strike a balance between scientific accuracy and the demands of entertainment?  Cell organelles, generally, are clear, so colouring them in film is already dispensing with reality (Lamond, 2012).  Another important question to ask is: is a narrator necessary to the film? And if so, what style of narration has the greatest appeal? I intend to compile an online questionnaire in order to find out the answers to these questions.

Technically, I hope to develop my skills in Maya Dynamics. I think that approaching the research from a narrative point of view will keep my options open so that on finishing the course, I can choose freely between a career in the animation industry and a career in research.

References

Ball, P., 2011. Unnatural: The Heretical Idea of Making People. London: Random House.

Harrison, P. L., 2009. Designs For Life: Art, Science and Collaboration. Ph. D. University of Dundee.

Inside The Human Body. 2011 [DVD] London: BBC. (Narrated by Michael Mosley. VFX by Jellyfish Pictures).

Lamond, A., Professor of Biochemistry at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression, 2012. Artistic licence. [meeting] (Personal communication, 23 October 2012).

McGhee, J., 2009. Visualise: an exploration of an artist’s approach to 3-D computer visualisation in clinical radiology. Ph. D. University of Dundee.

Secret Universe: The Hidden Life of the Cell. 2012 [Documentary] London: BBC. (Narrated by David Tennant. Directed by Mike Davis. VFX by Intelligent Creatures)

Bibliography

 Ball, P., 2011. Unnatural: The Heretical Idea of Making People. London: Random House.

Harrison, P. L., 2009. Designs For Life: Art, Science and Collaboration. Ph. D. University of Dundee.

Inside The Human Body. 2011 [DVD] London: BBC. (Narrated by Michael Mosley. VFX by Jellyfish Pictures).

Lamond, A., Professor of Biochemistry at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression, 2012. Artistic licence. [meeting] (Personal communication, 23 October 2012).

McGhee, J., 2009. Visualise: an exploration of an artist’s approach to 3-D computer visualisation in clinical radiology. Ph. D. University of Dundee.

McGill, G., 2010. Molecular Movies. [online] Available at: http://www.molecularmovies.org

Monroe, K. R., 2008. Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical and Political Issues. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Planet Earth. 2006 [DVD] London: BBC. (Narrated by David Attenborough).

Secret Universe: The Hidden Life of the Cell. 2012 [Documentary] London: BBC. (Narrated by David Tennant. Directed by Mike Davis. VFX by Intelligent Creatures)

Sharpe, J., Lumsden, C. J., and Woolridge, N., 2008. In Silico: 3D animation and simulation of cell biology with Maya and MEL. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.

Ware, C., 2004. Information Visualization: Perception for Design. Second Edition. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.

Script Writing Workshop

Today we had part two of our scriptwriting workshop with the legendary Mark Grindle, for which I had to write a synopsis. Here it is:

The film opens with a live-action scene of a woman sunbathing in a deckchair. We are then shown a close-up of what the UV rays are doing to her cells, damaging the DNA (which, if the cell were allowed to multiply, would lead to a tumour forming). The cell reacts by starting to produce a special tumour-suppressing protein. We see the various stages of the protein production, from the DNA unzipping to the amino acids binding together into a protein.

The protein then resolves the problem by repairing the damage done to the DNA.

(If possible within the time frame, an alternative storyline could also be shown of the other possible resolution to the story: if the damage done to the DNA is too severe, the protein initiates the self-destruction of the cell)

One the damage has been healed, the protein is disassembled. However, the pieces from the destroyed protein are reused and recycled into new proteins. The CGI element ends with a scene of the protein production process starting again – the camera then cuts/zooms out to the woman sitting in her deckchair, unaware that any of this has happened.

Not much has changed since I wrote it last night in preparation for the workshop, except for the last section featuring the woman, which Mark thought would bring the story full circle to a more satisfying conclusion. I’m really happy with it. Can’t wait to get started on the script.

Polygon Modelling

In other news… here is a shoe.

It’s not quite finished yet.

In conversation with Angus Lamond

This post is a little overdue – but I had a meeting with my main collaborator, Angus Lamond, on Tuesday evening. It was a very productive meeting, and I managed to greatly narrow down my area of focus.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the meeting transcript:

SG: I suppose one of the questions then is – how happy are you for me to push reality slightly if it makes [the film] more appealing to an audience?

AL: Having what you could call artistic licence – it really depends on what use you want to make of it. If you want to say to someone, ‘Here, as best we can tell, is how this happens or how it works,’ and you deliberately show something that we know isn’t how it works, then… I think you can do anything as long as you label it accurately, like if you want to say, ‘Here’s something intended to convey what’s going on.’ It might be that you want to simplify something because it’s either too complicated or even distracting to show everything or get too fussy about fine detail as opposed to saying, ‘I’m going to show the big picture of what’s happening without getting too uptight about the really fine detail, having every “i” dotted and “t” crossed.’ I don’t think that really matters – but you can’t call black white.

I think there’s a lot of scope for compromise, but obviously if you decide that you are wanting to give people who are watching an insight into a process that otherwise you couldn’t make sense of, couldn’t even get your head around or imagine what’s happening, then I think what’s important is to agree on: ‘What is the essence that you’re trying to communicate? What is important? Is it the relative scale of things, [or something else]?’

AL: There are other proteins – quite well known ones – which are being destroyed all the time, until something happens – like maybe the cell’s going to be a cancer cell – and then what you do is actually make that protein, or the cell gets damaged, has an accident – something goes wrong. And it’s like that protein is the emergency services – they come on the scene, do their job to fix the problem, and then go away again and get destroyed. So that could be another twist on it – you could say, ‘Well, why is that protein being made?’ And you could focus on one of the proteins, including some of the ones that we study, which – they’re actually made all the time, but almost immediately destroyed, until an accident happens inside the cell. And then you want a lot of the proteins, so you stop destroying them, and then you get a lot of the proteins, and then they can go and fix the problem.

As a result of the meeting, I have decided to focus on the life cycle of one of the tumour-suppressing “emergency services” proteins described above. Out of the different options discussed, this particular avenue has the most scope for compelling narrative. There is a clear beginning, middle and end: the protein is created, it resolves the crisis, and then it is destroyed.

At the moment I am considering the possibility of focusing specifically on a melanoma (skin cancer) prevention protein, as this means that the film could open with a live action element , for example: the film begins with a shot of a woman sunbathing in a deckchair – the camera then cuts or zooms in to show the effect that this is having on her DNA.

As long as it doesn’t look like a public service announcement!

More V-Ray fiddling…

I’ve been playing around some more with V-Ray, through the Digital Tutors Creative Development workshop Procedural Texturing in Maya and V-Ray with Oasim Karmieh. This is my take on the cell image. It’s not perfect, but I’ve got the hang of the tools and that’s what counts. I found the use of an HDRI image plugged into a dome light particularly intriguing. This one uses an image of the Milky Way – I guess it helps with the sci-fi feel.

NURBS Modelling: Finished Model

There we go – the finished (well, pretty much) model of the Music Room from House for an Art Lover. Here’s a low-res render. There’s a few tweaks needing to be made but otherwise I’m happy with it.

Golem

Now this is pretty mindblowing. This is GOLEM, made by Patrick Mccue and Tobias Wiesner. That’s all I’m going to say. That, and there’s some gorgeous dynamics work there I wouldn’t mind pinching for my own film. Sit back and enjoy.

NURBS Modelling: Finished Piano with Stool

Cell Shading (literally)

I’ve been working through a Digital Tutors Creative Development workshop recently – Procedural Texturing in Maya and V-Ray with Oasim Karmieh. V-Ray is very powerful and very good fun! The shaders offer hundreds of options and as it’s all done by procedural texturing it saves a huge amount of time. As a bonus, Karmieh uses a basic model of a cell to demonstrate these tools. So far, I’ve done the nucleus:

The Flow

A good friend of mine sent me this link today. It’s called The Flow, created by a London-based freelance artist known only  as MRK.  It’s pretty stunning work, and sums up exactly the kind of dramatic atmosphere I would like to evoke in my own film.